


Hard to Forget - A Love Story

by Persephone



Series: Willing to Take the Risk [1]
Category: Valentine's Day (2010)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Backstory, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Coming Out, Domestic, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Los Angeles, M/M, NFL, Rare Characters, Rare Fandoms, Rare Pairing, Romance, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:52:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone/pseuds/Persephone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man, his profession, and his one true love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sean blinked, and went on blinking, hoping he was merely having a version of one of his recurring nightmares.

But there was never snow in his dreams, and the scream of the Pittsburgh home crowd had never sounded this surround-sound rich.

This was no nightmare he could hope to wake from. Pittsburgh had won the game.

The San Diego Chargers were out of the playoffs.

Bench players, coaches, waterboys, press, and the crowds were rushing the field. Everyone was screaming and jumping on top of each other. The only people not moving, or slow moving, were the guys in dark blue and white. His teammates.

The Chargers weren’t going to the Super Bowl.

The raw pitch of the screaming fans seemed to be coming from somewhere else. Sean looked about him in a daze, hearing his own harsh breathing inside his helmet.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear the shouts of the game’s commentators, Nantz and Simms, coming over the sound system. They were yelling that the Chargers had pulled hard for a comeback in the fourth, but that the seconds had bled away like lifeblood from a deep cut, and that the Chargers had lost the day!

Sean stood panting in the drifting snow, staring unseeingly at the flashing scoreboard. With Nantz and Simms’ continuous yelling, the harsh, streaking lights, the sound of his labored breathing, the moment was sinking in.

His teammates came by, pulling at him, slapping at his helmet.

The world seemed to be spinning.

But it was the clearest day of his life.

~*~

The team flew out of the freezing cold of Pittsburgh and landed at LAX in the evening.

L.A. was warm, balmy in mid January, and the Virgin America arrival terminal was lined outside with ESPN, Fox, ABC and CBS sports reporters.

His agent and his publicist had prepped for the inevitability and had arranged for him to be picked up from one terminal down.

Kara, his publicist, looked as nervous as ever, and kept clashing eyes with him as if she meant to burst into hysterics at any moment.

He felt as though he should be comforting her even though he was the one who’d lost the playoffs, and then thought that Holden would have known how to comfort her.

Holden would definitely know how to comfort him.

He slipped into the back of the Lincoln Town Car and closed his eyes as the car pulled into outgoing traffic. He had slept on the plane, but the tension had been too much for him to do it well. Coach Turner had been mostly silent, already having given all the speeches he cared to back in Pittsburgh.

His teammates had all been quiet, distant. They all had a lot to think about.

Hours before, he hadn’t been able to get away from the reporters the moment the game ended. They had entered the locker room and had stopped at nothing to get to their apparent breaking news story of the year.

Even when he won a game he hated talking to press, but now they were practically salivating.

“Sean Jackson, star quarterback for the San Diego Chargers. Tell us, Sean, what went wrong?”

“Nothing went wrong.” He had been unable to keep from sounding defensive. “Not everyone is going to make it to the Super Bowl every year, and we definitely have next year to try.”

It hadn’t even come close to satisfying them. It was as though the press were talking about one thing and he another. They had their angels to pursue and there was very little he could say to get his point across.

And he had lost. In the end, that was all that mattered. In a season when most of them had predicted that he would take his team to the Super Bowl, he had failed to do so.

The crucifixion had not begun.

The car took him to his front door and he let himself into his house. The sun was just setting on the water, setting white Pacific light off the surface, and the sound of the surf behind the house reached him easily on such a quiet evening. It was good to be home.

He dropped his bags, cell phone and his jacket on the closest chair and went into the kitchen for an iced tea. He took the cool glass with him out onto the patio.

In front the house was at street level, in back it was three floors above ocean level. The beach spread directly below in both directions as far as they eye could see.

He stood looking at the water for a long time. Then he slowly lowered himself into a chaise.

He waited, preoccupied with the tensions that had followed him home from Pittsburgh. He watched the sun set, and there he fell asleep.

It was Monday the twelfth of January, 2010.

~*~

Holden’s text had said he’d be there in a few minutes.

It was nighttime, a little after ten. Sean turned the phone over in his hands, glancing up at the front door from where he sat at a kitchen stool.

Holden never forgot the little things. Holden knew his flight had come in that afternoon, and, presumably, knew his team had lost.

His phone hadn’t been ringing that much. It was still a little early for that. People avoided discussing bad news like the plague, and most had chosen to send him a text or an email instead, saying how sorry they were that his team wasn’t going to the Super Bowl. It was nice not to have to talk about it.

The only voicemails he’d gotten were from his family. His dad had said some nice things and his mother had been her usual optimistic self. Maybe next year.

Yeah. Maybe.

He heard the click of the front door and looked up.

Holden was standing at the door, dressed as always in a three-piece suit. His blue eyes were sad as he walked into the room.

“Hey,” Holden said softly.

He stood up, and Holden came up to him and wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling down his head. They stood with their foreheads pressed together, him letting out a breath, breathing easier now.

“Are you okay?” Holden asked gently.

It was this gentleness that he had been waiting for.

He nodded.

“Do you need anything?”

He shook his head. He tightened his arms around Holden and kissed him. Softly, tenderly, letting the pent up emotions slide from his body.

Holden returned his kiss warmly, deeply, hugging him tight. Then Holden pulled back and took his hand. “Come here,” he said, and he followed.

Together they went into the bedroom.

~*~

He sat in his living room working on his laptop.

Once in a while the sound of the surf broke into his thoughts, and when it did he would look up and stare out at the water, lost in thought.

Then he'd remember that he'd been doing something, and only then would he be able to return his attention to the websites he was reading.

He felt slow, disconnected.

Playoff teams stats were open in their own windows, as was every major article being written about the divisional games, which was the playoff round that had just been concluded. His email accounts were also open, along with the latest statements from his business manager, a couple press releases from Kara, and the eTrade account he played around with on his off-time.

The TV was going softly with ESPN in the background. The AFC Championship—the final playoffs round before the Super Bowl, played by teams in the AFC conference—was on in a few minutes. It would be followed by the NFC game, the same round game for teams in the other conference.

For now, however, ESPN was showing old games of the teams that would be playing that afternoon.

This was the AFC Championship that he should have played in, had they defeated Pittsburgh. The odds had been in their favor to at least take the Championship.

He kept the television muted because he didn’t really care to listen to sportscasters earn their pay. But mostly to avoid listening to whatever they had to say about the Chargers.

When he heard the words _quarterback Sean Jackson,_ he held down the volume on the remote until the sound went down a few more decibels.

In the relative quiet, he heard Holden in the kitchen.

Holden had come out of the bedroom a short while ago and had since been in there. He glanced over his shoulder, thinking it was a little quiet for Holden, and saw that Holden was holding up a blue carton of 2% milk. He was giving it a shake.

It didn’t sound like there was much left. A slight look of panic crossed Holden’s face. It meant he might have to use Sean’s fat-free milk for his cereal.

Sean felt a smile tugging on his mouth as he saw just when Holden came to that realization, but not acceptance, and started peeking hopelessly back into the fridge. Then Holden closed the fridge door and straightened, and Sean faced forward.

“Hey,” Holden called from the kitchen, his voice full of hope. Sean kept a straight face and didn’t look over. “You don’t happen to have some kind of milk powder lying around somewhere, do you? I don’t mean creamer, I mean, you know, something sweeter…”

He pretended to have just come into the conversation. “Uh, no,” he said over his shoulder.

Holden didn’t respond for a moment. Then he heard him quietly say, “Aw heck.”

He heard the fridge open once more and turned to see Holden leaning inside, sighing as he accepted his fate. He reached inside and withdraw a pink carton of fat-free milk.

Pulling his bowl toward him, Holden first dumped the few drops of 2% remaining into the cereal bowl—better some than none—before finally letting the fat-free milk ruin the rest of it.

Holden came into the living room and sat down in the twin leather recliner next to his, and he moved his laptop, making space for Holden to put his feet up on the glass coffee table.

He went back to staring at the websites but found he still couldn’t concentrate. He looked up at the TV.

The old game had ended and the pre-game show for the Championship was about coming on. Scenes from Heinz Stadium in Pittsburg, colorful rows of seats packing a sold-out crowd, were now on the screen. It wasn’t snowing this time. He turned up the sound a little.

Holden pointed with his spoon at the game. Holden was eating out of a yellow smiley-face bowl Sean’s niece had left while visiting with his sister right after Thanksgiving.

“Who’re the guys in purple and gold?”

“Those are the Baltimore Ravens.”

“I like their colors.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Just remember what I said about betting on a team based on their colors.”

“It worked that one time.”

“Just that one time,” he assured Holden.

Holden started laughing, not sorry at all.

He found himself smiling at his computer screen. Goofball, charmer, beautiful to look at. That was Holden.

Chatty as hell, yet attentive to everyone’s needs. Maintenance-free.

That was Holden. Holden was, without a doubt, the most captivating human being he had ever met, and a relationship with him was like a wonderful gift.

Wonderful, as long as he didn’t ask for one particular thing. That no-go area beginning with the letter “C.”

~*~

Every year he went to the Super Bowl. It didn’t matter which team was playing or in which part of the country it was taking place, he’d get his family tickets and they’d all show up in the city where it was happening and have themselves a blast.

This year, he couldn’t make himself do it. Not because they’d come so close to the Bowl he could taste it, and not because he was a sour loser—he’d lost games before. But because this year he couldn’t control the feeling that everything was happening outside of him. That he was removed from the world.

The excitement, the energy…none of it seemed part of his life.

Pittsburgh had shut the Baltimore Ravens out for the AFC Championship with almost the same points-spread that they’d kicked his team out of the playoffs. So he felt even less conflicted about his team’s loss than he had two weeks ago. They really had done an outstanding job in a tough season.

But in his head his words sounded as though he was at a post-game press conference listening to himself defend his team record. _That_ Sean was over there doing what he had to do, while the real him was over here, wondering when he could go home.

His parents had chosen not to go to the Bowl without him, but his sister and her family, along with whichever friends they’d been able to take along, were, as far as he knew, sunning it up in Florida at that very moment.

He turned his car into Paula’s driveway, pulling in behind the line of guest’s cars.

So this year, it was his agent Paula’s Super Bowl party, the most exclusive party in town.

Even then, rather than considering how much money he would win from his teammates on his bet that the Cardinals’ defense would crumble under pressure, he was thinking instead that he had never taken Holden to a game.

Not even a Chargers home game, less than two hours away in San Diego, and it hadn’t been for lack of trying.

When he and Holden had first started going out, he had brought Holden a team T-shirt. Nothing custom-made like some of the guys got for their girlfriends, just something he had bought at the team store at the stadium.

Holden had told him thanks...while staring at it as if trying to decipher some kind of code from it.

He hadn’t immediately been able to make sense of what that had been all about, but he soon had. And since then he had never repeated a gift to Holden that made it look like he wanted to mark him as his own.

He sighed, returning to the present. He really wouldn’t care at all if he skipped today entirely.

Pulling up to the valet, he stepped out and took the ticket, leaving the key in the ignition.

Of course, having next to a zero percent interest in his profession’s biggest day wasn’t something he was going to share with his agent.

But the moment he entered the house, Paula took one look at him and he realized he wouldn’t have to.

She came right over, and through the stuck-on smile on her face, said, “We’ll talk once the season is over.”

Patting him heartily on the back, she faced the room and announced his arrival to her packed house. Her guests gave him a loud, cheering ovation. It took him by surprise and moved him.

His publicist Kara came over and greeted him, waving erratically as she bore her eyes into him as if she was trying to read his mind. He returned her greeting and saw her nails. They were bitten down to a nub.

Oh boy.

~*~

Pittsburgh won the Super Bowl. The Arizona Cardinals had played as well as could be expected, but as he had predicted, the Steelers had hit them like a blow to the head. The neat touchdown drive orchestrated by the Steelers quarterback, under a mountain of pressure and with two and a half minutes to go, would be the thing most talked about at Super Bowl parties for a decade to come.

But, though the season was officially over, the post-season hadn’t officially began. Steelers fans across the country would have time to party until this coming Sunday, the traditional week-long celebration allotted to the winning team’s city.

After that, starting in the second week of February, there would be nowhere to go but into post-season speculation.

Players, teams, coaches, and their futures, would be up for endless rounds of speculation and commentary by sportscasters fishing for stories. Some would be true, some would be false, most would be innuendo that would eventually find its way into one of the two categories.

Team trades, player deals, and yes, firings, would be the only game in town until April, when a new round of players would be drafted into the league. And after that, everyone in the league would have, presumably, found a home with a team.

But until then, the news outlets were going to be nothing more than well-fed rumor mills in addition to being sources of legitimate news.

For this reason, he kept the radio and TV going most of the day. And this time when he heard his name mentioned he left the volume as it was. It all had to be heard. And who knew, maybe he was jumping to the worst conclusions about what they’d have to say about him. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.

~*~

In that regard, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

When it came, the media didn’t merely speculate about his future and where he might end up, they eviscerated him.

It was the eighth of February, exactly one week after the Super Bowl, when he first heard the speculation about him, a bright Sunday morning with sunlight bouncing off every corner of his room.

Pittsburgh’s week-long celebration was over, and the post-season had officially begun, and he was spring cleaning his wardrobe.

Spring was still far off, but from now until April he was free to occupy himself as he wanted. Most players took this time to start planning for kids’ football camps or charity events that would take place in the spring while spending time in-between with their families.

His schedule until the camps and events was to regain his equilibrium, harder some years than others. To that end he ran along the water, went into the surf, lit aromatherapy candles, and tried to make time clearing his mind of clutter, and cooked. It was also his time to be with Holden.

But for now he was putting together things that were to be autographed and donated to auction for a kids' charity—boxes of old football jerseys, 8x10s of him on the field from Kara’s P.R. agency, and a pile of brand new footballs.

He had just gotten started and was only half listening as he pulled tape across the box, when he heard the FOX Sports anchor utter the words:

“—what might be the biggest question of the post-season. Is Sean Jackson _washed up?_ ”

He stopped packing and turned his head toward the TV. “What?!”

The news report had cut away. They were interviewing former players who now made their living talking about the game. All of them had very wishy-washy things to say about him.

They said he hadn’t given his best this season, and that he had brought something less than his “A” game to the field. And that it was something the Chargers would have to take a closer look at and decide what to do about.

He knelt there and staring at the TV.

It was complete nonsense!

He watched until he couldn’t stomach it anymore and picked up the remote and clicked off the television.

He picked up the packing tape but found he couldn’t concentrate.

Seriously, what the hell were they talking about? Washed up? He’d just set the team’s record for completions, and had now twice taken them to the playoffs on their best winning streaks. But all of a sudden he was no longer _good_ at this?

He sat back on his hunches and tossed the packing tape. Then after a moment, he sighed, reached back for it, and continued packing.

~*~

Holden arrived a few hours later and he came out of the bedroom, hoping to leave behind the dark cloud over his head and spend some time with his honey.

Holden was tossing his thousand-dollar Hugo Boss jacket to the floor by the door and holding up several neatly packed, insulated bags of takeout. Takeout from Sean’s favorite restaurant in the world.

He felt warmth spread across his chest, and a smile begin to pull across his face.

Holden held out the bags like holding on to a dance partner. “Turn on the music,” Holden called out.

He grinned, picking up the remote. “What do you want?”

“Gimme some Alicia Keys.”

He chuckled under his breath and turned on his sound system. His playlist came up and he scrolled down and pushed the button on _Fallin’._

Solid bass beats filled the house, pounding out against soft piano notes. Holden began slowly swiveling his hips toward him, following the rhythm of the music.

He grinned until his face was about to split apart. He couldn’t dance to save his life. And neither could Holden.

He opened his arms as Holden reached him, and closed his eyes as Holden’s body came flush against his. He buried his face in Holden’s hair and breathed in his scent. The warm takeout bags settled against his bare back.

He rubbed his palms over Holden’s back, pressed his lips to his neck, moved gently to the beat of the music.

And slowly, he began to move Holden backwards, guiding him until he had him pinned to the wall. He pressed his open mouth to Holden’s warm lips, letting out a happy sound when Holden gave his mouth a soft lick.

The food slid down his back. He twisted his arm on reflex and caught it against the small of his back, and carefully lowered it to the sofa to their side.

Holden was already pushing his jogging pants down his hips, and he was pulling his hips away a little to let him, and came back willingly as Holden’s hands replaced the material.

He reluctantly broke the kiss, arching away when he felt Holden’s fingers touch him between his legs. His fingers scraped the back of Holden’s head, clutching him, pulling him.

With one hand, he unbuckled Holden’s belt, freed the clasp, and slowly, unzipped Holden’s pants. Holden encouraged him with soft words.

He trailed his fingers over Holden’s cock, rubbing into its wet tip. Holden leaned woozily back against the wall, rocking into his touch. He panted with short, fast breaths, watching Holden fall apart. Holden came pouring over his hand, thrusting with his eyes closed, running his hands over his back and shoulders.

Then Holden sighed, collapsing slowly against the wall. Holden tightened his fingers around his cock, moaning still with his leftover pleasure, and his entire body went stiff from the sudden, tight sensation.

He pressed his body forward into Holden, kissing him roughly on the mouth, on his face, moving his hips even closer as he struggled against the crushing pressure of Holden’s hand. Holden slid his free hand down his ass, trailing it across his skin before grabbing him fully in his palm and pulling him in. Then Holden began sliding down the wall, his tongue already licking at the corners of mouth.

When he felt it, warm and rolling over his length, he shuddered and lost it. He clutched Holden by the shoulders, throwing his head back, groaning as he tried to both get his cock out and bury it down Holden’s throat. His orgasm went on.

Then, slowly, he came back down to earth. Holden stood up, and they caught their breaths leaning on each other on the wall. Then Holden began to slide to the side, and catching on, he crawled with him onto the sofa.

~*~

He was sitting up in the sofa while Holden had propped himself up against pillows on one end, his legs draped across Sean’s thighs. They hungrily devoured the food.

“Wolfgang says to say hi, by the way,” Holden said around a mouth full of food. “He wants to know when you’re going to actually show up in his restaurant again. He wants to make you a dish that’ll make the Super Blues go away. His words.”

Sean smiled at his food. “Yeah, sounds like him all right.”

If not by nature, then being on the road pretty much from July to January guaranteed that he was very much a homebody when he was home.

Holden, on the other hand, constantly went to dinner parties and charity as well as political fundraisers as part of his work in handling exclusive real estate. Those kinds of things were a grind to him, and it meant a lot that Holden didn’t stress him about joining him.

He’d been surprised the first time Holden had asked him, curious that Holden felt fine with openly showing up with a guy.

Holden had shrugged, waving a hand dismissively.

The attitude was a true one for Holden. Holden came from old money—international real estate—and even his dad hadn’t had the usual issues with his son being gay. They were just too privileged for anyone to care.

So while Holden didn’t by any stretch flaunt his sexuality to anyone, he took his dates wherever he pleased, whenever he pleased.

It had been a nice thing to discover.

Done eating, he had turned his head on the soft leather sofa and was staring at Holden, unable to take his eyes off him, while Holden talked about selling overpriced hotels in the Middle East.

He listened, thinking that the night lights coming from the kitchen and around the room made Holden look like a blue-eyed, brown-haired angel. One that had just been very unangelically romped.

He was sinking into an intense haze of bliss, as if he had drank excellent champagne. He blinked at Holden, letting himself soak in the feeling.

And then, just like that, it began to come together in his head.

Slowly, but at the same time suddenly, he could see why he had been feeling so disconnected, so removed from the world around him.

It was because of Holden.

Holden made him feel alone.

He stared at Holden, letting it sink it.

For three years now he had been head over heels in love with Holden. He would never have believed that a person could carry this much love inside them for something outside of themselves. Most of the time he wanted to devour Holden, to keep him inside and filling his perpetual ache.

He had actually googled it, because for the longest time it had frightened him, making him wonder whether it was a normal or right way to feel about someone.

The answer had been that it was fine, apparently. It was just sometimes the way love was.

For Holden, however, what they had was functionary. He was just a favored lover. Monogamous, yes, but a lover only, and only for the time being. He had Holden, but he did not own him, and under no circumstances was he to entertain, much less bring up, the idea of a permanent commitment.

It was their arrangement, and he had agreed to it, and it was through this euphoria in being with Holden that he had to brace himself for the reminders to come.

The reminders usually began in the month of February.

And what better time to start? When the rest of the country was gearing up to celebrate the biggest relationship day of the year, Holden would leave the country. And the next time Sean would see him, the noise would be well past.

Then for the rest of the year, until football season started up again in the fall, Holden would subtly but regularly repeat this point.

Unreturned phone calls for days, no successive visits on weekends, evasive answers to simple questions, until he had learned, except in his weakest of moments, to leave it alone.

It was having this knowledge that was making him sick, making him feeling empty inside.

It had been there, and growing, ever since the end of the playoffs.

No, earlier than that.

Because the fact was, it was slowly accumulating to one thing, and one thing only. The day when Holden would finally say “It was nice knowing you, but this is starting to become serious so I have to go.” And Holden would move on.

And he would have done nothing but sit there and take it.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

The following morning he stood at his kitchen counter cutting up carrots, the sunshine flooding in from his mostly glass walls. It was another gorgeous day in Malibu.

He hadn’t turned on the radio or the television yet that day.

He was still smarting from the “washed up” comment from the day before, even as the media drumbeat against him steadily got worse.

A linebacker for the New England Patriots had been arrested on charges of sexual assault in a nightclub, and a running back for the Dolphins had caught his fifth DUI and might be facing jail time, but all the press wanted to talk about was whether Sean Jackson would still have a career come regular season. You’d think he was the only player in the NFL.

A warm hand suddenly interrupted his rumination.

The hand slid across his stomach, sinking into the waist of his jogging pants, before Holden moved up closer behind him, pressed up against his body.

“Good morning,” Holden whispered somewhere around his ear, his voice still thick from sleep, the hand down his joggers languidly, unhurriedly, scratching the short hairs around his sex.

It was Holden’s favorite thing to do in the morning. He glanced over his shoulder at Holden.

“Hi, beautiful,” he replied softly.

Holden kissed the back of his neck, then brought his head forward so he could look at Sean’s face as he asked him, softly, “Feeling better? You were a little under the weather last night.”

He cut the carrots slowly, thinking about the answer he had spent the morning going over. He knew Holden was talking about the season.

“I was,” he replied. “But tell you the truth, I don’t feel better.”

Holden tightened his arms around him, kissed him.

“I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he told Holden frankly. Then he turned and looked down at Holden. “And I’m not talking about football.”

Holden slowed down his rubbing, tightening, as if about to speak. Then he suddenly seemed to rethink whatever he had been about to say, and instead let out a breath.

It was obvious, painfully telltale, that Holden was having problems asking the question, as though he was trying to pull up an anvil from a long way down.

At last Holden said, “Then what are you talking about?”

He waited, and when Holden wouldn’t go on and say it, he did. “Us.”

Holden went completely still. But it was now or never.

“I think I’m not happy about…this. I think I want something— more.”

Holden didn’t move. Then he laughed a little. “What are you talking about?”

“I think you know.”

Holden’s arms slid off his body as he took a step back. “Sean, what are you—” Holden stopped himself.

He still hadn’t turned fully to look at Holden. He was slightly ashamed to admit he didn’t want to see the look of disappointment that was sure to be in Holden’s eyes.

“I’ve felt… _weird_ for months now, Holden, and I can’t keep pretending I don’t know something’s not right.”

“I—I don't even—”

“Every year we have this—thing, starting this time of year. And it builds until...I have to go into the season with this… _thing_ in the pit of my stomach. This—crap feeling.”

“What are you—?”

“I don’t think I can keep it up. I don’t _want_ to keep it up.”

“Sean, _stop._ ”

He did. But he believed he had gotten most of it out. Then he glanced over his shoulder.

Holden looked past distressed. He looked like he was ready to bolt. He watched apprehensively as Holden raised his hands.

“Why are we talking about this all of a sudden?”

“I just told you, I’m having—”

“Sean, don’t conflate the issues— not that we have any _issues._ I mean, do we? Why is this suddenly not good any more?”

“I don’t know,” he said quickly, before Holden could get any more upset. “It’s good. It’s just—” He stopped himself, but after a moment forced himself to go on. “I’m tired of this game.”

“ _What_ game?”

He turned around fully and faced Holden. This was it.

“You know what game.”

Holden stared, waiting.

“Are you going to be in town this Saturday?” he asked.

Holden held his eyes. “Saturday? No.”

Sean lowered his eyes.

“Sean, are you kidding me? I travel all the time.”

“Not all the time.”

“Okay then,” Holden said, his mood slowly turning into anger. “I travel _enough_ of the time.”

“But always on Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh Christ, Sean! I’m not going to stand here and have an argument with you over a freakin’ made-up day!”

“You know that’s not what it’s about, Holden. You know you’re not being honest.”

Holden stopped and stared wide-eyed at him, then burst into a short, humorless laughter.

“Oh, wow,” Holden said, an edge of bitterness in his voice. “So just because I’m not going around proposing marriage, or moving in, or whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing at this stage in a relationship, I’m not a good person. This, coming from the guy who’s walking around trying to win a trophy for Mr. Straight Quarterback of the Year.”

Sean’s heart slammed to a stop. Silence descended.

He wasn’t even conscious of when he had stopped breathing as he just stood there staring at Holden, speechless.

Holden seemed to suddenly become aware of what he had just said. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, God.”

He moved away from the counter, pushing the pile of carrots he had cut to one side of the cutting board and placing the knife next to it.

“Sean,” Holden said hoarsely.

He wiped his hands on a towel and tossed the towel onto the countertop. His hands were shaking.

“Sean, please…”

He was struggling to speak. He wanted to open his mouth but was afraid it would end with something getting broken to pieces.

He pushed away from the counter and headed for the bedroom. Holden grabbed his arm.

“Take your fucking hands off me,” he said in a rapid, uneven voice.

Holden didn’t release him.

He gritted his teeth. He could feel them clattering as he fought to control his fury. Holden had to feel him shaking. And yet he wouldn’t let go.

So he opened his mouth and said very carefully to Holden, “You don’t want to stop playing this game? You’re going to talk to me like that, _in front of my face,_ just because you don’t want to hear the word _commitment?_ You better get the fuck out, right now.”

“Sean—”

He pulled his arm from Holden’s grasp and headed for the bedroom.

“God, Sean, _please_ —”

“I’ve _given_ you years of my life, Holden,” he threw over his shoulder. “You’ve had enough. Get the fuck out.”

He slammed the door behind him.

~*~

It was their fourth break-up.

Holden had left him a note in the kitchen telling him he was sorry.

That was all it said, “Sean, I’m so sorry.”

No asking for forgiveness, no begging to talk when he got back. It was not an omission on Holden’s part.

He crumpled the note and threw it in the trash, then tapped the SMS icon on his phone. He sent Holden a text:

“Don’t bother coming back.”

He was done.

~*~

He sat in his living room staring in the dark.

He had turned off the TV and the radio and had had them off for days. He had had enough of being the bad guy.

Paula had been calling his phone night and day, and his personal correspondence had been piling up, waiting to be responded to. But sitting there in the dark was all he could do.

He had ended his life with Holden.

The irony was that Valentine’s Day, what their fight had ostensibly been about, didn’t mean much to him at all. He took it no more seriously than the average person, only simply appreciating the fact that there was a special day dedicated to love.

Usually, if Holden was around before the day, he would take some flowers over to him and they’d have dinner.

That was all that happened between them on that day.

But the societal pressures and obligations around it had become an unbearable irritation to Holden, and Holden had turned Valentine’s Day into his own personal victory day.

He had turned it into the one day out of the year when he wasn’t going to be made to feel obligated to play by anyone else’s rules, or made to feel like an asshole for not caring.

The day itself was a nonissue. But it had become a symbol of everything that was wrong with their relationship.

~*~

He started waking up earlier and going for longer runs. His fight with Holden had been on Monday, and it was Thursday now, and he had done a lot of thinking.

Holden in actuality was made up of several beautiful sides. He travelled coach, even though he could probably afford his own jet, and gave his cars up to strangers at airports. He just couldn’t stand aside and see someone in any kind of a difficulty if he felt he could do something about it.

Holden had a good heart, but he saw very early on that when it came to relationships, Holden let a very different side of him come out and run things.

Holden had never been in love, and it had worked for him. He had spent his high school years pining after jocks and maneuvering his way through their parties, and sometimes the back seats of their cars, until one day when he had found himself alone in a bedroom at a party with a quarterback. The quarterback for whom he’d carried a torch since junior year.

The QB had been drunk enough to let Holden kiss him, and then they had both fallen asleep. But the kid had woken up with Holden still lying next to him and had recalled what they had done—nothing at all—and tried to shove Holden around.

The quarterback hadn’t gotten any more violent than that, because Holden’s father owned half the world and could have had him and his parents thrown out of their home before morning, and Holden had left. But it had been the last straw, as far as Sean could tell, and from then Holden had consciously or unconsciously decided never to feel beholden to anyone again.

Holden hadn’t dissected any of this for him, in fact Holden had played it off by telling him that he now knew about his secret fetish for quarterbacks, and also why he, Sean, was lying next to him at that moment.

He hadn’t taken Holden’s joke seriously—a lot of kids in high school had crushes on quarterbacks and he wouldn’t term Holden’s feelings any differently. But he had listened and had learned a lot.

So he was perfectly aware that Holden had made very conscious decisions about the manner in which he would conduct his love life, and he would have been fooling himself, ruining his own life, if he hadn't been able to face that and walk away.

But a quiet, pain-filled voice inside him had began talking. It kept telling him that maybe he had done the wrong thing. That maybe he didn't understand.

Even though he knew without question that he had done the _right_ thing.

But when he stopped and bent over, his hands on his thighs as he caught his breath, and squeezed his eyes shut, and felt tears drip, he accepted that it wasn’t going to be easy.

He straightened and sniffed, wiping his eyes. Then he resumed his run.

~*~

Holden landed in Leipzig, Germany, right after breakfast local time. He was on a trip of inspection to a castle his corporation was about to sell to a hotel chain.

Greeted by a waiting chauffeur, he handed the man his carryon and followed him out to the curb and got into the back seat of a limo.

Watching the scenic countryside fly by, he felt as though, for the first time in days, he could draw a breath without feeling nauseated.

He had finally done it. He had fucked it up with Sean.

Yet, he had known this day was coming since their first dinner date together. So why was he so upset?

It was the break-up itself. The nasty, needlessly awful way it happened. The fact that he had been unable to control himself when this was by no means the first companion with whom he had called it splits.

That he had felt so cornered by the things Sean had said that he had felt the need to lash out like that.

God, he couldn’t even think about it without wanting to yell in frustration. Sean hadn’t deserved that.

That, in addition to the fact that he was leaving when Sean was going through a particularly bad situation with the media, with the press gossiping nonstop about his future career in the football league—a career which was perfectly fine, of course.

He felt like shit warmed over. It was going to be a rough few days alone in his head.

He closed his eyes and dropped his head against the headrest, utterly missing the stunning countryside blending by in flashes of green and light blue.

~*~

When he had first laid eyes on Sean at a charity fundraiser for children’s leukemia, he had all but wet himself. Sean, who looked very mean, had held on to a glass of iced tea like a lifeline, looking pained to be in the midst of so many L.A. people, glorious in all their lightheaded fakeness. The fundraiser had boasted a slew of celebrities, celebrity-wannabes, and, of course, their ubiquitous hangers-on.

He had maneuvered his way over to Sean until someone in close enough proximity, with close enough degrees of separation to know them both, had been within hearing distance. Whereupon introductions had been made.

Sean had shaken his hand briefly before releasing it, neither impolitely nor with any apparent interest. He remembered how he had been caught off guard by the surprising softness in Sean’s eyes and in the manner in which he spoke.

He had missed it when Felicia, the agent who had introduced them, had said what it was Sean Jackson did for a living. So it was a little funny, largely interesting, when he found out that Sean Jackson was a famous quarterback.

He didn’t catch for what team, even when Sean repeated it, because he was no longer hearing anything anyone was saying. Because wouldn’t you know, he had quite the thing for quarterbacks.

Neither a football watcher nor able to tell one team from another, he knew, nevertheless, the one thing that when in the shower, never failed to send him into the stratosphere. He presumed it was the take-charge nature of their work.

Therefore Sean Jackson had just become irresistible to him. Exposition was no longer necessary.

As the conversation went on around them, however, things began to look a little less exciting. Sean barely said a word.

It wasn’t necessary that he be a rocket scientist, but he was very clear on the type of men he liked to take home, and wallflowers weren’t on the list. No matter what they looked like.

So despite the sexy height, the very broad shoulders, the gorgeous face, hands, hair, jaw, beard, eyes—had he missed anything?—the absence of any sense of excitement from the man was turning him off.

Sean was speaking now, telling him it was nice to meet him, but that he had to go. He nodded, his interest long faded. Besides which, he thought Sean Jackson might be straight.

_Ah, well._

He raised his hand in farewell, already turning away and bringing his drink up for a sip.

Then he saw Sean giving him a final look, a glance out of the corner of his eyes, and his drink stopped halfway to his lips. He blinked.

Had he just imagined the _“Fuck, yes,”_ look Sean Jackson had just thrown his way?

No, he couldn’t have. He wasn’t nearly interested enough to have projected anything like that. And he didn’t think he could have projected raw intensity like that if he tried.

He looked over but Sean was already slipping out of the room. He put down his drink and sought out Felicia. She smiled and said sure, she could pass on his contact information to Sean's publicist, no problem.

Ordinarily this would do just fine, but for this one he wasn’t about to take a chance that Felicia would forget or that his info, which not a lot of people could track down, would get lost along the way.

He smiled and placed a hand on Felicia’s arm. He wasn’t a shy person. He told her he would like to meet Sean’s publicist, if possible, and hand it to her himself.

Felicia walked him over to a tall, slender, woman. Talking to her for five seconds revealed her to be high-strung. He couldn’t imagine why. He handed her his card and she promised to give it to Sean. He happily left the party.

Sean Jackson never called him.

—

Neither of them was interested in the gourmet food.

Nor in the spectacular night view of the San Gabriel mountains to their right. Or in the gorgeous lit-up Japanese garden that could be seen through the picture windows to their left.

In fact, there didn’t seem to be any other patron in the restaurant as far as they were concerned. They just kept staring at each other, unable to look away.

“You weren’t listening to a word I said,” Sean was telling him. “I figured you couldn’t have been that interested.”

“Then why do you think I left my card with your publicist? Kara, right?”

Sean nodded, then gave a brief, sad shake of his head. “I don’t know. I’ve had all kinds of weird experiences with men. I thought maybe it was a power thing.”

“But you gave me _a look._ ”

Sean shrugged. “I couldn’t help myself.”

He sat back and crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at Sean. Then he shook his head, saying playfully, “How dare you keep me waiting so long?”

A very sweet smile tugged on the corner of Sean Jackson's mouth. Sean dropped his head and looked up at him like a man whose pleasure had been touched. “I apologize,” Sean said in a very soft voice.

And slowly, his insides went very tight.

His breathing came out shallow, shaking, and before he could figure out what was happening, his eyelashes went into a flutter. It felt as though he was experiencing vertigo.

The sensation passed as suddenly as it had rolled through him, and he reached for his glass of water, blinking and frowning.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure.”

He took a sip of water. What the hell had just happened?

—

He parked his car in Sean’s driveway. Sean’s house was a modern beach-front structure in Malibu, its front facing a private road and its back facing the ocean.

He disliked ultra-modern architecture, and was sure to keep an expressionless face as he looked briefly at it.

He had picked Sean up for their date, insisting that he would as a reward for being made to feel unwanted. Sean had been appropriately amused.

He had had to track down Sean’s publicist himself and set up a “drinks” meeting between them just to get Sean Jackson sitting across from him.

They walked to Sean’s front door. And in the dark, recessed entryway, he leaned against the door jamb and waited for Sean to invite him in.

Sean punched in his door code, went still for a moment, then turned to him. “Holden,” he said softly. “I…uh…don’t do sex on a first date.”

He just kept staring at Sean, uncomprehending.

At last it sank in. “What?” he asked dully.

“I’m sorry,” Sean said. But Sean continued to stand there, staring down at him.

It was like being under heat lamps. He felt as though he was starting to cook, his excitement increasing, not decreasing.

Okay, he was getting a lot of mixed signals here, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t been drinking.

But he nodded and raised his hands to indicate that he understood, never mind that it was probably the strangest thing he’d ever heard a grown man say, and took a step back.

Sean’s arm came around his waist.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” Sean asked, an unmistakable tone in his voice. Then he lowered his head.

He stood there, confused. So sex was off the table, but making out was okay?

Sean pulled back, realizing he wasn’t responding.

“What is it?”

“Um…I think I have to go.”

He had been unable to keep his irritation out of his voice.

And then, like always, he was also unable to keep his thoughts to himself.

“You don’t have sex on the first date, but you’re okay with standing here making out like a couple of teenagers. After which…what? We both go home and jerk off? What is that, some kind of weird…thing?” He couldn’t even think of the word for it. “Like…kinky? I mean, talk about a power play.”

Sean slowly withdrew his hands, bringing them to rest on his own hips. It wasn’t a defiant stance. And Sean didn’t try and defend himself. Instead he said, “I understand. And no, it’s not a power play.”

Holden frowned.

He didn’t know what to make of Sean Jackson. His intimidating, exciting-danger appearance contradicted his strange mannerisms, which spoke of an old-fashioned upbringing.

Was he a quiet pushover or a take-charge quarterback? Or maybe he was Christian.

Sean was still staring at the ground. Then he looked up and said, very carefully, “Can I call you?”

“Sure,” he said automatically.

He really didn’t care either way. Gorgeous men were a dime a dozen, and frankly, he didn’t need this.

—

Sean called him, as he said he would. And called and called.

After about a week and a half, the calls stopped.

A month later, Holden returned the calls.

—

They were having lunch in the Pacific Palisades, at a restaurant on the bluffs overlooking the ocean. It was an intimate setting, yet it gave them a sense of being out in the wide open, which Sean seemed to like.

Sean, arms wrapped around his chest, was telling him about himself. “I kept it to myself, but I never got harassed growing up. My sister, who’s a lesbian, keeps telling me it’s because I’m _straight-acting,_ whatever that means.”

“It could also be because you look kinda scary. Who wants to get into a fight with someone that could beat them up?”

Sean laughed. His laughter was always brief and suppressed, as if he didn’t consider it important enough to get in to.

It made his insides feel as if they were being thrown into a wok and stir fried. _Everything_ was cooking.

“What about you?”

He looked at Sean. “Huh?”

Sean frowned at him. “You weren’t listening just now, were you?”

“No, no, I was. I just got a little bit distracted when you—” He made a curving motion over his mouth to indicate a smile. Sean pursed his lips, nodded.

“So? What about you? What’s your childhood experience?”

The truth was he was also distracted by how he was feeling about tonight. Should he have agreed to meet Sean? And why did Sean agree to meet him after that awkward parting and him subsequently ignoring him for a month?

He continued looking at Sean, and when both of Sean’s eyebrows went up, he sat forward and asked him just that.

Sean at first looked reticent. Not taken aback or even caught off guard by his straightforwardness, just slightly guarded.

“I know it’s what everyone expects in L.A.,” Sean finally said, “and especially from a football player. But I don’t have an ego, and I don’t have an agenda.” Sean caught his eyes. “I like you. In fact, I like you a lot. And…I’d say more, but I don’t want to freak you out. So when you called and said we should get together,” he shrugged. “I just thought it would be nice.”

He toyed with his cutlery while Sean spoke, trying to figure out whether Sean really was different, or whether he was insipid and he should be walking away and never calling again.

His eyes drifted across the table and stopped where Sean’s stomach met the table. Then of their own accord, his eyes trailed up the broad chest and even broader shoulders, up the tanned neck and golden-brown stubble, coming to a stop at the light blue, very soft eyes.

Sean smiled minutely at him.

Holden shifted his gaze away. He hadn’t let himself think of fucking Sean Jackson for the past month. He was far from a sex maniac, but this no-sex-while-dating rule had made sure it was all he could think about.

“Look, I’m not interested in playing teenage dating games,” he blurted out defensively.

“I’m not playing a game with you,” Sean said slowly, his deep voice perfectly even. “Teenaged or otherwise.” He didn’t seem anything close to upset. “But I’d appreciate it if you stopped prejudging me and started paying attention to me instead.”

His eyes flew to Sean’s. Sean shrugged, a tiny, open-ended shrug, and Holden felt heat course up his face. He was probably beet red, and he deserved it. He had been acting like a jerk right from the beginning.

He sat forward and pointed a finger at Sean. “It’s all your fault,” he said desperately. “If you hadn’t come up with your stupid no-sex rule, I wouldn’t be sitting here turning into a complete drooling idiot, saying things that don’t even make any sense.”

Sean stared at him, startled. Then he started to laugh.

“I’m not kidding,” he complained, laughing despite himself. “So stop it already. I think I passed.” He sat back. “Ugh. I’m so glad I got that off my chest.”

Sean gave him what he could only term as a very pleased smile.

And that afternoon they had sex.

—

Okay, so…he _was_ probably turning into a sex addict.

The first time they did it Sean pulled him into his house and into his bedroom and he didn’t dare speak for fear of ruining his luck, and he eagerly got into the king-sized bed.

Sean pushed him gently onto his back and stripped him of his shoes, shirt, belt, pants, and socks, then got on top of him and began kissing him from his mouth down. By the time Sean was at his belly button, he was panting and twisting under him like a leashed lab, and he wanted to tell Sean he was moving too fast.

But Sean laid between his legs, wrapping his arms around his thighs and pulling them apart. He proceeded to kiss his cock, balls, the insides of his thighs, and all he was able to do was keep his grip on Sean’s biceps, bunched up with the effort of keeping his twisting body from falling off the bed.

His cock was standing straight up, rock hard, but all Sean seemed interested in doing was suck on his balls, push his tongue into the soft flesh and breathe warm, wet air into them. He started rocking, pushing his body as far dawn as it would go into Sean’s face, pulling him up by the arms. Pleasure tore through him, stiffening him, drawing a long, deep groan as Sean held him down, stabbed him with his tongue.

He shuddered, rocked, curled up to see his cock bathing in its own come, Sean’s mouth occasionally sliding over it. He kept his eyes open and watched, his nipples on fire. He touched them, pinching, riding it out.

At last the last trickles of his climax faded away, and he collapsed on the bed and panted like he had just escaped death.

He was gathering the strength to pat Sean on the head or something, when Sean rose from between his legs, coming over his body like a rock climber.

When he was on top of him, Sean wrapped an arm around his head, covered his mouth with his own, and he shuddered helplessly with pleasure as Sean’s tongue entered his mouth, licking him, giving him a taste of himself.

He wrapped himself around Sean’s body, about to enjoy going to his death again in this position, when Sean turned, bringing him on top of him.

On his own back, Sean grabbed him, made him turn over so that his back was against Sean’s chest. Sean reached to the side for something, then he felt Sean’s hands under his ass, rolling on a condom.

Sean grabbed his ass, his fingers stroking, parting. One arm came around his waist, held him tight. He clutched Sean’s thighs as he felt the probing tip…then tips, rocking himself, until suddenly it was no longer just tips.

He released Sean’s thighs, pulled on the sheets. Sean replaced his fingers, thrust slowly, deeply, a hard, wild groan escaping his throat, and in a matter of seconds he was getting the stars fucked out of him.

He held on, his head on fire from the sensations, feeling as if the world itself was moving under him. Sean’s head fall on the bed, his neck arched beside his face. He turned and pushed his face into it, whispering, “Oh my fucking God,” and sent Sean over the edge.

There was a perfect stillness, as Sean’s orgasm ebbed. Then he felt Sean melting into the bed, his arms around him slackening. Sean shifted, moving them both onto their sides. His arms came around him again, and Sean’s breaths settled against his ear.

“Jesus,” he whispered softly, panting. “Now I think I know what it means to get fucked within an inch of your life.”

Sean laughed. Short, breathless laughter that he thought maybe he’d like to hear a whole lot more of.

~*~

Sean remembered those first dates like he was still living them. Holden, six feet to his six-two, thirty-six to his thirty-five. Brown haired, dark blue eyes, a pale complexion.

How beautiful Holden had looked to him, so interested in everything around him, seeming so innocent and helpless, like he would trip over his own feet in a moment of overexcitement.

Holden in bed was as much of a goofball. A little bit clumsy, and not at all the definition of a “smooth lover,” he didn’t seem to have a playbook and thought improvisation was the spark of genius. It sometimes made for a very funny experience in bed.

One he knew to keep to himself.

But five times out of ten, just when he thought he was going to never stop laughing, Holden would get it right. And when he did it was worth every other time he’d had to come in and rescue the game.

The way Holden came off as someone always in need of protecting was in fact in total contradiction to his actual personality. Holden was the embodiment of confidence, the poster boy for a man who usually got his way.

It didn’t, however, make him feel any less protective of him. And though it didn’t manifest in a physical way, it took hold on an emotional level.

He kissed Holden in a way he had never kissed other men, tenderly, as if he wanted to make every moment perfect for him. And soon, he realized, he was kissing him with all his heart.

Holden outright told him from the beginning that he didn’t like expectations, that just because they were in a relationship didn’t mean that he, or Sean, was suddenly expected to go down a certain path or take on certain roles.

He had heard what Holden was saying, but he hadn’t really understood what Holden was talking about. Or why it should be an issue. They were crazy about each other. What more was there to talk about?

He soon found out.

~*~

They spent a majority of the time either of them wasn’t working at his house. They behaved no differently than how he presumed the average couple lived.

He made dinner some nights and some nights they ordered in. They watched movies, argued over the usual things, had sex in the shower, fixed each other’s laptops, talked intimately at night in bed.

Holden laughed at his aromatherapy candles, and he couldn’t believe anyone still wore boxers.

It seemed absolutely _normal._

Until, one day, he got the feeling that Holden was chafing against his attention.

Holden seemed reluctant to come over, antsy when he was, and was gone before he finished kissing him goodbye.

It left him baffled.

And then, with no preamble whatsoever, Holden left him a note.

It said simply that Holden thought they should take some time off from being together. That maybe seeing so much of each other all the time wasn’t a good idea in any relationship.

He had been completely thrown. He picked up the phone and Holden took his call. No, it hadn’t been some kind of a joke, yes he meant it, and no, it really wasn’t that big a deal.

He presumed it was shock that made him get in the car. For no reason he could think of, they were suddenly broken up. All he could think of was getting to Holden and finding out what had happened.

Nothing had happened. Holden had let him in, calmly repeated that he simply thought it was a good idea, and after minutes of trying to talk to him, Sean had left.

He had returned home and spent the next few days wandering around his house in shock…while Holden had gone off and had sex with a string of guys.

He knew because he had sat in his car on five separate nights and had watched as one after another, very good looking guys in expensive suits accompanied Holden through the glass front doors of his high-rise.

Holden lived on the Wilshire Corridor, exclusive apartments with door men and valets that only parked you if your name was on a visitors list. He had no reason or invitation to go over there.

It hurt so much be could barely breathe around it. But he didn’t know why he was sitting there like a fool.

He drove away on that last night and told himself to never go back.

Holden had made his point, reminded him of what he had said at the beginning, in case he had thought he was kidding.

Point taken.

—

How their break-up ended was that one day Holden appeared, smiling, at his front door, and he couldn’t even remember how they had made it to the couch.

Afterward, Holden had actually, dazedly, asked him for a cigarette.

He stared down at Holden. The thought of shutting the door in his face after two months of being apart had never even crossed his mind. And he was too in love and too torn now to ask him to leave. Especially when Holden smiled at him like that, with those harmless looking eyes.

Holden had tried communicating with him over the past week, but he had refused to take his calls or respond to any of his texts.

Holden yawned blissfully, stretching his arms over his head, then bringing them down around his neck. He waited, feeling Holden do his slow wriggle to get comfortable under his weight.

“What the hell made you come back?” he asked quietly.

Holden shrugged, smiling up at him. “Who said I wouldn’t?”

He didn’t smile back.

“Are you okay with this?” Holden asked quietly.

His heart was pounding as if he had taken a wrong step on the field and his muscles were trying to compensate.

It would be a simple, final thing to say no, he wasn’t.

But for the life of him, he didn’t.

He did, however, get up. He reached behind his head and unlocked Holden’s arms and pushed up from the couch. Holden propped himself on his elbow.

“Where are you going?”

“Bed.”

He heard rustling as Holden got up and came after him. At his bedroom door he stopped and turned around and Holden bumped into him.

He held the door open with one hand and placed the other on Holden’s chest.

“Alone,” he said tightly, and slammed the door.

—

In the morning they went their separate ways.

He thought he would give it a few days, cool off and think about what he was going to do about Holden.

But by evening they were back on the couch, tangled around each other and watching a movie.

Fine, so they had discovered each other’s boundaries. Holden didn’t like feeling like someone owned him, and he didn’t like being treated like an afterthought. They had reached an equilibrium and he decided they could both respect it.

And they lived happily ever after.

Supposedly.

~*~


	3. Chapter 3

And that was their love story.

Painfully full of those things that weren’t in the fairy tales.

He should have said no three years ago. But he hadn’t been strong enough.

Well, now he was.

It was Saturday morning, six days after their break-up, and he wasn’t angry at Holden anymore. Well, maybe he was. But he understood that he and Holden wanted different things from life and he couldn’t begrudge Holden that. It was just time to move on.

The press was now deep into post-season speculation. His phone rang constantly. At this point he just kept it on silent and talked mostly with his family. Paula was threatening to send someone to break into his house.

He still didn’t think he was ready to call her back.

At that moment he was Skyping with his sister, her spouse and his niece. He watched his niece hold up the latest drawing she had made for him to the webcam. He laughed and touched the screen.

“It’s beautiful,” he said into the headset, chuckling at the wildly colored sketch of him bashing another player over the head with the pigskin. He worried about whether to tell her that wasn’t the game of football. It was probably how she saw it in her little six year old mind.

His sister released her from her knees and sent her off to play. Both women sat forward and stared into the screen with matching expressions of concern.

“Sean, how are you holding up?” his sister asked. “Really.”

He shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“Of course you’re not fine. Those ESPN End Zone guys are acting like there’s blood in the water. Hannah Storm is practically salivating every time she has to mention something to do with your future in the NFL. Where’s Holden?”

He let out a sigh he hadn’t intended. “Holden’s not here.”

His sister’s face compressed into a frown. His sister-in-law leaned closer to the screen and said in hushed tones, “Did you guys break up?”

His phone flashed. He looked at the name on the display and sighed heavily. He’d put it off too long. “Allison, I gotta take this.” He held up the phone.

“Is it really ringing or are you just avoiding talking to us? I didn’t hear it ring. Did you, Kay?” His sister-in-law shook her head slowly, giving him a “don’t try and fool us” look.

He laughed, holding his finger over the end call key on the laptop so they could see. “I’m serious. I have to go. It’s my agent.”

“All right, but _talk_ to someone, baby brother. Okay? Love you, bye.”

“Okay.” He closed the laptop and pressed his phone’s answer button. “Hey Paula.”

“Sean, let’s talk.”

“I’m really not up to it, Paula. As far as I know, I still have a job. So until otherwise, I don’t really see a point in rolling around in speculation.”

Paula fell silent. “Sean, I don’t get paid to speculate. I know _you_ know you can’t put this off forever.”

“I know.”

“Okay, so let’s figure it out together. This is what I collect ten percent for. I have a call in to the GM. Meantime, let’s grab a meal.”

He agreed. He had to. He didn’t need to turn on the TV to hear what was going on. He had it practically memorized, as it seemed the only thing worth talking about in the post-season.

It seemed everyone in the world of sports commentating had gotten together and agreed that he had underperformed that year. That maybe he could have taken him team to the Championships, if not to the Super Bowl itself, had he been at the place he was two years ago. Perhaps it was time to reevaluate. Was Sean Jackson getting old? Would the Chargers keep him? Was he going to get traded? Or could he even cut a deal with another team?

He had never heard so much crap in his life.

He tossed the phone and held his head in his hands. Then he opened up his laptop.

The program had gone into pause and his sister and her family were long gone from the call.

Allison had told him to his shock that they had all stayed home from the Bowl this year, and instead had had a big family and neighborhood cookout—partly from the small fortune they’d made from selling the Super Bowl tickets on eBay.

They had tried his cell that day but he hadn’t heard it ringing at Paula’s party.

He switched programs and looked at the slideshow from the cookout again. Everybody had been there. It hadn’t snowed that day and they had had it in the backyard with heating lamps.

It looked like they’d all had a whole lot of fun.

He smiled looking at the pictures, and felt his heart ripping in two.

He had never taken Holden home with him. That was just a flat-out no. Realistically, they didn’t have any excuses to be around each other in public, period. He couldn’t take Holden to his teammates’ weddings, their parties, nor to their children’s christenings.

He closed the lid, deciding once and for all that Holden was the past.

~*~

Paula set their breakfast meeting for Valentine’s Day. Which was classic Paula. She didn’t realize it was a day any different from the rest.

He had forgotten to call Kara and let her know to join them, so he had to cut his run short to make the call. He jogged up the back steps, took them three at a time to the third level and headed into the shower.

Like he did everyday, he showered, then brushed his teeth. And like any other day, he looked over and saw Holden’s toothbrush.

He had forgotten to throw it out when he had packed up Holden’s things. He simply plucked it from the toothbrush holder and threw it into the trash can.

It was much easier than he would have thought. The last thing. He was now ready to breathe free, decide what he was going to do with his life.

He stood in front of his bedroom TV and listened to Hannah Storm on ESPN while he dressed. Hannah’s words, consistent with all the overblown talk he had been hearing, seemed to get more and more dramatic.

He listened as he tucked himself in.

“With football season over, the only lingering question is what will Sean Jackson do? A devastating loss in the championship game leaves his future in question. His contract is up, and at age 35, he’s one of the oldest quarterbacks in the league. Does his team want him back?”

This was beginning to border on the ridiculous.

The news report cut away to Coach Turner. “Of course I want Sean Jackson back. But it’s not my decision.”

_Nice defensive blocking there, Coach._

“If not,”—it was back to Hannah—“will he test the waters of free agency? Or, will he make this easier on everyone…and just retire.”

“Come on, Hannah,” he burst out. “Lighten up.”

He grabbed the remote, clicked off the TV and tossed it on the bed. He found his cell and went out to the patio to call Kara.

Okay so maybe he had _underperformed_ this past season.

He took a deep breath and let it out. Yeah, he could admit that now. At least to himself. He wanted to own up to that after facing up to everything else with Holden.

But these sportscasters were insisting on acting as if his record over the past three seasons with the Chargers—some of the best the team had ever seen, period—didn’t exist, and that his career was about to disappear overnight. It was total overkill.

Before he let his irritation derail his entire day, he pulled up Kara’s number and dialed.

Kara, when she finally answered, sounded winded, hassled as ever.

She agreed to meet him and Paula in a hour. He clicked off, wondering what the hell he was supposed to say to them when he had no answers for himself.

 _Hey, I just broke up with my boyfriend of three years, whom I’m still in love with, so…I’m ready to take on the world now?_ Not even.

He went into the house and finished dressing.

~*~

It all started when he tried to close the cabin window with his foot.

The negotiations for the sale of the castle had gone without a hitch. The weather had been on its best behavior and the company they had contracted to handle maintainance on the property had done a stellar job.

All’s well that ends well.

Sitting in the aisle seat, the laser beam of light coming through the cabin window from the setting sun was so intense it could cut diamonds. He squinted and tried to figure this out.

There was a soldier taking up the window seat, but she was fast asleep with her head on his shoulder and he didn’t want to wake her. Who knew where she had been that very morning when he had been sitting comfortably at a Habsburg dynasty writing desk.

He’d have to do it the old fashioned way. By reaching over with his foot.

He shouldn’t have had that vodka martini. He wasn’t much of a drinker to begin with, and drinking to stop himself from thinking about Sean was a very stupid idea.

He almost had his big toe on the plastic slide when the solider suddenly jumped awake.

“ _What_ are you doing?” she asked in a flat monotone, like giving an order.

He sat up and stuttered out an apology, pointing at the window. It seemed strange now that he simply hadn’t waited and asked a flight attendant.

She blinked hard, clearing her head, and then seemed to realize she had been using his shoulder for a pillow. She moved farther into her own seat and apologized.

“For leaning on my shoulder?” he asked. “That’s the least I could do on a fourteen-hour flight.”

He looked at her uniform. “You on active duty?”

“Yes sir.”

“Two bars. Is that lieutenant?”

“Two bars is a captain.”

He faced forward, nodding. Huh. He could have sworn that two bars meant…

He turned back to her. “D’you have a loved one in L.A.?” _Please say yes, please say yes. Pleeease talk to me._

Sean was always telling him that he made people nervous when he randomly talked to them, because it sounded like he was hitting on them.

He had no idea where Sean got that from. He was going to lose his mind if he didn’t get out of his own head.

The captain stared straight in front of her and didn’t reply.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you,” he told her, nodding. He looked down at his hands. “He’s a…” He took a deep breath.

He had been about to say “He’s a lucky guy,” but really, there was no need to go there. And what did he mean by “lucky?” To have someone love you was to be, by default, lucky?

He turned back to her. “How long has it been? Since you’ve been home?” He hoped she would say something. He was going to start blabbering.

“Eleven months.”

He faced forward. Whoa. He turned back to her. “And how long do you get to stay?”

“Just till tomorrow,” she said quietly.

He pulled back in surprise. “Wow. Fourteen-hour flight, both ways, just for one night?” He looked up at the ceiling. Would he have done that for Sean? “Wow, that’s romantic.” He found himself almost laughing. “I mean, you’re romantic. I mean, that’s quite a gesture. That’s…”

She was silent.

He was blabbering.

He faced forward. He heard himself saying, feeling out of his body, “Now _that’s_ a commitment.”

Oh fuck, what had he done? Could he take it back? Would _Sean_ take him back?

He stopped, tightened his lips and let out a deep breath. Calmed himself. Too much vodka.

He turned to her. “You’re on Facebook?”

He stopped, frowning internally, suddenly realizing how crazy he sounded. He was about to apologize when he looked over.

She had her lips pressed together and was rolling them in.

She was trying not to smile. He laughed in relief.

~*~

It was a beautiful day in Santa Monica. Sean ordered waffles with a drizzle of maple syrup, raspberries, and a coffee. Kara smiled nervously at him.

Now that he had decided he had come to some kind of mental stability about breaking up with Holden, his mind seemed to enjoy randomly popping up with things Holden would love.

Holden would love the waffles. They were light and fluffy. But he would have blueberries instead of raspberries, which he felt were superior. And there would be whipped cream. Enough to bathe in.

For side dishes Holden ate carrots and snow peas. Maybe some asparagus. But at home, he had seen the whipped cream go on the vegetables as well.

Holden would smile at him from under his lashes when he did that, daring him to say something funny. He’d only made that mistake the first time, after which he’d had to go wash whipped cream out of his hair.

Paula finished hollering at someone over the phone and hung up. He sat up in his chair.

She let out a sigh and got straight to the point. “So,” she said, somewhat cheerily. “Spoke to the GM… They passed.”

“Passed?!” he exclaimed.

The team’s general manager had said they didn’t want him back? Maybe he had heard wrong. The words certainly didn’t fit Paula’s chipper attitude.

“We got to the playoffs,” he said, when she just continued looking at him, as if waiting for the words to sink in. “I was all-league!”

Kara jumped in. “I’m working on a press release saying it was a mutual parting.”

There was a pause. Then Paula nodded. He looked from one woman to the other. It appeared to be a done deal.

“S-so now what?” he asked.

“Well, we um…” Kara was playing flippant. “We look for another team.”

The words deflated him, instantly turning him off. He felt a little sick.

He thought he’d prepared himself for just about anything after all the hammering from the press, but he couldn’t keep this up.

Players who were free agents moved around all the time in the league—half the league was made up of them, in fact. But the thought of being a part of all that hype and noise sounded like a big flashing headache to him.

He didn’t know. He was ready for so much more, he _wanted_ so much more. But now his hopes were going in one direction and his career in another.

Everybody was _living,_ except him.

Another team, another city?

“I don’t know,” he said dejectedly. He stared down at the table, then said, “Maybe I’m done.”

“You’re not done,” Kara whispered, horrified.

“Absolutely not,” Paula assured him firmly. “And I’m not speaking as someone who makes a lot of money off you. I’m speaking as your _fan._ Right now, you can still make a ton of money doing what you love.”

Suddenly, he found himself very easily able to say the things that had been troubling him for so long. Because it seemed he had nothing more to lose.

“Well, the problem is, Paula, it’s not the only thing I want out of life. A relationship…kids.”

Out of the corner of his eyes he thought he saw Kara give him a startled look.

What was so strange about him wanting the same things everybody else wanted?

Paula smoothly assured him that he could have all that and still play football. But he knew that was the one impossibility. And he really ought to know when to hang it up.

“Look, I’m not complaining. I’ve been lucky, but—”

“So what is he telling me?” Paula asked Kara, ignoring him. She didn’t wait for a response, just shook her head at Kara as if he had bashed his and was talking gibberish. “What are we going to do?”

But he could see Paula’s carefully controlled panic. Losing ten percent of twenty million a year couldn’t be easy for anyone to swallow.

Kara held it together. “I think we should take a beat,” she said carefully, clearly thinking fast, “and uh, let Sean think about what he wants.”

“Right?” Kara prompted when he only stared at her.

He was a little surprised, appreciative of the fact that she wasn’t panicking over this. He sometimes forgot why, neurotic as she seemed, Kara was considered one of the best publicists in the business.

She was nodding almost imperceptibly, encouraging him to go along with it.

“Right,” he agreed firmly.

Paula stood up. None of it was what she had wanted to hear. “We have no _time_ for thinking.” And with that she left.

He stared vacantly at her empty seat.

After a few moments Kara fidgeted, said she’d call him and also left.

He sat there alone for a long time. Then he got up and went out to the valet for his car.

He waited in the bright sunshine. Watching his car being driven up to him, he felt the way he had that day in Pittsburgh, as if the world had slowed down, passing him by, and he was looking in at it from the other side of a window.

People walked around, interacting, sharing lives, and he only observed it all happening.

What part of it was real? His wanting to play football, or his wanting to settle down and raise a family?

He dropped his head back and closed his eyes against the sun. Why did the one person who made him want these things have to be the one person who didn’t want to share in it?

His car rolled up and he got in. But instead of heading back up the coast to Malibu, he decided he would drive into downtown L.A. to see his lawyer.

He never made it.

~*~

He had been listening to the radio and not paying as much attention as he should have to the road.

It was wanting to hear the reactions to Kara’s press release, which had been read verbatim in the news reports, that kept him flipping stations.

After the commercial break it came on.

“You’re listening to Mike & Mike In the Morning on ESPN radio, America’s number one sports talk show,” the first Mike said, cheery as a cartoon character. “And bringing you the news of the hour— Sean Jackson? Now a free agent!”

“But what’s he supposed to do next?” asked the other Mike, even more cheerily.

“Maybe he can check out craigslist, see who’s hiring!”

_Oh, funny son of a—_

He slammed on his brakes and slammed on his horn, seeing what was happening in front of him too late. His Navigator didn’t stop in time and he crashed into the back of a pink van.

He hadn’t seen the red light.

He got out and slammed the door, scrubbing his hand through his hair. He let out of a breath and walked toward the van. Yeah, he’d hit the back door pretty bad.

The driver got out and went into a brief rant. He calmed the man down and handed him his card and told him to contact his business manager.

The guy, who seemed to be a joker, told him he’d have _his_ business manager get in touch with his business manager. Then he saw the name on the card. And then it was time for an autograph.

He signed the man’s cap, unable to take his eyes off the van’s back door. It looked like it was about to fall off right there and then.

“Hey, that door’s pretty messed up. You got another truck?”

“Yeah, but I’m already behind. Valentine’s Day is kind of a big day,” the man said, a smile in his eyes. “Flower-wise.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know why people get flowers delivered when you can still buy them and give them yourself.”

“Well, some folks like to get flowers at their workshop.” Then the man turned to him and declared, “For some people, love doesn’t exist unless you acknowledge it in front of other people.”

The words nailed him to the spot.

And all of a sudden he realized something.

He looked at the delivery guy, knowing he had just experienced what was so rightly called an epiphany.

“Huh,” was all he could think to say.

The guy pointed a finger at him. “You’re a superstar, Sean. Drive better.”

He nodded vaguely. His hand was already in his jeans for his phone. He returned to his car as Kara picked up.

“It’s me. Listen. I know what I want to do.” He stopped short of saying _to make me feel whole again._ He paused, tapped the hood of his car. “I think.”

~*~

Her name was Kate, and they were playing backgammon. She had explained the rules to him, and he had learned quickly.

He felt much better now, much more himself. The vodka trip was now a thing of distant memory.

She rolled the dice and struck gold again.

“Come on!” he exclaimed, as she burst into rich laughter. “That’s seven in a row.”

She nodded, laughing, apparently surprised herself. “It’s amazing.”

He was laughing. “You are like…” He turned to the little girl across the aisle and said to her, pointing at Kate, “This woman’s a shark.”

The girl grinned back at him.

“You are good at this game,” he said to Kate.

“Not really,” she replied, beginning to pack up the game. “You just witnessed a tactical game of reading your opponent and adjusting accordingly.”

He sat up. “Wait, are you saying that you’re reading me?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but suddenly there was a white-sleeved arm extending itself across the space in front of him, holding out something to Kate.

It was a red lollipop in the shape of a heart, being held out by the female flight attendant. Kate seemed taken aback.

“Thank you,” she said, carefully taking the candy from her.

He was staring at Kate’s candy when another one was very gently, very pointedly, placed on his own tray. He turned and saw the flight’s face very close to his own. She was smiling a loaded toothpaste smile at him.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she breathed.

“Oh, thank you,” he said cordially, then looked forward. He looked at Kate, then couldn’t stop himself from looking back down at the candy.

The flight attendant had moved on. He placed his fingers on the piece of plastic-wrapped candy, blood red of course, as all pain-related things should be, and pushed it as far to the other side of his tray as it would go.

“Yes, I can read you,” Kate said somewhat loudly, very pointedly. “It’s part of my training. Everyone gives subtle hints.”

He brought his attention back to her, glad for the harmless distraction. “Hints. Like what?”

“Giveaways. You boarded the plane wearing a suit but no wedding ring. Serious but not committed.”

Everything stopped. He stared at her.

“You let a stranger sleep on your shoulder,” she continued jovially. “Kindness, but also feels good to be needed.”

He wondered how he could signal her to stop. But he didn’t let a thing show on his face.

“The heart-shaped candy?" she whispered conspiratorially. "Another giveaway. Either you have a problem with sugar, which, based on the amount of maple syrup you put on your pancakes this morning I wouldn’t think so, or, you have a problem with candy _in the shape_ of a heart.”

As if compelled, he felt himself turning to look down at the candy. He looked back up at her, starting to feel weird.

“Which means you _might_ have a problem with romance. And things pertaining to this day in particular.”

He felt stricken. And he was sure it showed on his face.

Then he realized that it really was just lucky guesses, and it had nothing, could have nothing whatsoever, to do with him. She didn’t _know_ him.

“Hmm,” he said casually, recouping. “Not bad, soldier.”

Then he turned his face away.

“Another round?” Kate asked.

He turned back to her. “How ‘bout cards this time?”

~*~

Kara had done an outstanding job. This was what she was good at. In less than six hours she had arranged a press conference for him.

Paula had called his phone a million times but he had let it go to voicemail. He wasn’t about to let anything unnerve him before he went up to that podium.

It was as perfect a day as anyone could want. Marina del Rey was sparkling under the sunshine, white sailboats parked in the blue waters of the marina looking like welcoming little dreams. It was a good day to believe in the future.

The hotel staff had set up white canopies on the rooftop, and the place was filled with press. Kara made her intro quick, and was asking him up before he thought he was fully ready.

But it was now or it would always be never.

He had gone home and changed from his T-shirt and jeans into a grey suit and white shirt, his favorite combination in which to look relaxed and confident.

He had taken a couple of hours fielding calls from his now-former teammates wanting to know what was going on, but he had simply told them all to stay tuned.

All in all he was ready.

~*~


	4. Chapter 4

They were experiencing a little turbulence. The fasten-seat-belt sign was on and Kate was in the ladies room prepping for landing. He hoped she was okay in there.

Suddenly, someone was standing in the aisle right next to him. He looked up and saw it was Kate.

“Ah!”

He put down his magazine and quickly stood up to let her in, and banged his head against the overhead bin as another jolt of turbulence rocked the plane.

Kate winced as he got out and helped her put her carryon back into the overhead. He held his stinging head and sat down after her.

He turned to her and broke into a smile. She had changed from her Army uniform into a soft oatmeal-colored sweater. “Well, _you_ look very pretty.”

She fought a smile and thanked him, looking straight ahead.

He suddenly realized something. “Are you nervous?”

“Yes,” she said immediately.

“Well, you’ve no reason to be. The minute you walk through that door,” he shook his head, “nothing else is going to matter.”

She thought about it for a second, then turned to him. “Thank you.”

He smiled reassuringly and returned to his magazine.

That much he knew to be true. Because, despite not wishing to think about it, he had been on the other side of that door enough times to know.

~*~

“So. Why do you hate heart-shaped candy?”

“I think it’s because it reminds me that this is Valentine’s Day and I’m recently single.”

They were coming in for a landing, it had been over fourteen hours and he was way past the resistance stage.

Why had he said _single,_ though? Had he and Sean been a couple? Weren’t couples by definition in a committed relationship? A _coupling?_

“Oh,” Kate said softly.

“Well, it’s just…we weren’t on the same page.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He looked down at his hands.

It was the end of a relationship. He had ended them before. The key was to not let himself forget that endings were a normal thing, and therefore to maintain an air of normalcy about it and not attribute any specialness to breaking up with Sean. It had simply been time.

He looked back at Kate. “It’s over.”

“Nothing to be done?”

“No, no. I’ve seen the enemy, and the enemy is me.”

~*~

First, he thanked them all for coming, on this of all days. He acknowledged that most of them probably had plans, therefore he’d make it quick.

“The cliché when someone’s retiring,” Sean said, saying it exactly as he had said it in his head, “who doesn’t want to retire, is to say it’s because they want to spend more time with their family. Well, I don’t have a family, and…with everything football’s given me, the biggest thing it’s taken away is that. Because of who I am, because of my job, I haven’t been able to live the life I want to. With that in mind, I’ll just say the thing I came here to say.”

He said it…and then realized he hadn’t said it out loud.

He took a breath and finally let it go.

“I’m gay.”

He pulled back from the podium.

He felt ten years younger.

The ensuing chaos didn’t bother him at all.

The press were yelling all at once. Talking over each other, gesturing frantically as if they had all suddenly gone deaf. He heard one of the male reporters yell, “What, are you kidding me?!”

He leaned into the mic. “Any questions?”

Then he quickly added, “And—and be cool, because I’m not above kicking anybody’s ass.”

Kara flew to his side. She looked as though she had been slapped, then electrocuted. He felt great. He propped one fist on his hip, waited.

Kara was shaking like a leaf beside him. She tried to swallow but that seemed too hard. The reporters were shouting at them. He knew Kara was looking for a friendly face to call on.

He saw one reporter’s hand go up. He thought he recognized him from local sports. He was about to point him out when Kara saw him too and actually seemed to calm slightly.

She pointed to him, calling out, “Kelvin Moore, KVLA,” and nodded. Then she hurried away.

“Sean, I’m confused here,” Moore said instantly over the noise. “Are you saying that you’re _retiring?_ ”

The question caught him off guard. He stood stock still behind the podium.

“Oh. Right. That.”

Then he started laughing. He had forgotten all about his career being a problem. It all seemed so straightforward now.

“Nah, I’m not retiring.”

He cast around in his mind for a catchy slogan to encapsulate what he was about to say. Something tacky, he thought, the idea bringing a smile to his face, that would make Holden shudder in revulsion.

“I’m gay…and I’m gonna play.”

~*~

The flight landed on time.

He quickly trotted down the escalators, checking his phone for messages. Not that he was looking for any one in particular.

His regular chauffeur, Redmond, greeted him in the terminal, taking his carryon and coat.

“Did you have to wait long?” he asked Redmond, already turning towards baggage claim.

“Not long at all.”

Redmond followed him.

“Check any bags?”

“No.” He kept looking until he saw her.

Kate was standing by an information counter, looking upset.

She left and headed toward the baggage carousel, and he reached it at the same time she did. He helped her lift her bag—a lot of stuff for an overnight stay—and looked at her. She looked distressed.

“Are you okay?”

She explained to him all in one breath that the Super Shuttle was going to be nine stops to her house, and that she would pay extra for a cab, but that the line for a cab was two miles long. So now she was headed for the car rental place.

He told her it would take an hour just to get there by shuttle.

“I’m gonna help,” he said.

“Really?” she asked, her eyes following his movements as he took her coat.

“Yeah, I have a car.”

She fumbled for an excuse not to accept, but he quickly told her he wanted her to have it.

“You traveled so far for a few hours. I think you should spend every possible second with this guy.”

He handed her bag and coat to Redmond.

People were different. What worked for Kate wouldn’t by necessity work for him. But if it worked for her, then he wished to give her all the advantage in the world.

She looked like she was struggling not to cry. Then she moved closer and hugged him. “Thank you,” she said, in her simple but strangely profound way.

She pulled back and smiled. He smiled too.

“He’s a lucky man,” he said. _To be so loved._

She went over and took his coat from Redmond and brought it back to him, and kissed him on the cheek. “Bye,” he said, and watched her go.

He felt better. He felt like a success.

~*~

He settled into the back seat of the town car and reached for a paper.

Redmond had refused to let him take a cab and another car had been arranged to take him from the airport.

He unfolded the paper and settled back to read.

He had come home a little earlier than usual this time around, still catching the treacly whiff of the Annoying Day festivities.

But he had missed the worst of it. He would get himself home and not think about anything for a day or so. Then on Monday the world would start up again, and he would be himself again, and Sean, like so many men before him, would well and truly be the past. And inside him things would be right again.

But instead of any of that happening, he sat there staring at the newspaper headlines, dead certain he was seeing things.

He sat up.

There had to be two Sean Jacksons in the National Football League. Right?

He looked up, staring vacantly at the back of the chauffeur’s head.

Because if there weren’t, he was looking at a headline that said Sean Jackson had just become the first openly gay male player in major league sports.

~*~

He made the driver find the nearest sports bar and pull over.

It was all over the news.

He stood by the entrance to the bar and stared at the news conference Sean had apparently given earlier in the day. The conference was being projected on one of several hundred-inch flatscreen TVs.

The place was crowded, brightly lit, and silent. Everyone was staring at the screens.

He stared at the images, which seemed to be swimming in his vision.

He was in shock.

He could tell because he was watching Sean’s lips move on the screen but he couldn’t hear any sounds. Or maybe he had lost his hearing.

They said severe trauma could do that.

He dragged his eyes to a table of nearby patrons. They had all started talking again and sound was slowly bleeding back into his head.

He turned abruptly to leave and slammed into a couple coming in.

They apologized but he couldn’t get any words out, and just walked back out to the curb. The car pulled up and he got in before the chauffeur could get out and open the door for him.

“Still to Wilshire Boulevard, sir?”

The sound of the chauffeur’s voice came from far away. But he still couldn’t locate his speech facilities. He looked back at the neon lights of the sports bar.

What kind of an hallucination had he just had?

~*~

There was something soft and soulful playing on Sean’s sound system.

He shut the door quietly behind him and tossed his jacket to the floor. Inside, the living room was lit mostly by lights coming from the outside. He kept walking until he was standing next to one of the twin leather recliners facing the TV.

He looked down. Sean was fast asleep in it.

Slouched in the chair, his long legs bent at the knees to accommodate his length, Sean’s breathing was deep and even.

He looked perfectly at peace.

He leaned down and touched the petals of the white orchid he had stopped and bought on his way over to the side Sean’s face. He traced them across his skin, down to his jaw.

Sean gently swatted them away in his sleep.

He set the orchid on Sean’s shoulder. Sean, still in his sleep, tried again to brush away the nuisance. This time when his fingers touched the petals, he came fully awake.

While Sean stared incomprehensibly at the orchid, he lowered himself until he was at eye level.

Sean looked up at him blankly, then, realizing what he was seeing, pulled back ever so slightly, startled.

But he gave Sean a reassuring smile, and stroked his fingers through the hair at the crown of his head. Sean sagged into the recliner, seeing that he wasn’t here to pick a fight. That he had brought a peace offering.

His eyes boring deep into him, Sean said simply, “You saw.”

He stroked Sean’s hair, stared at him. “Yeah.”

For a long time, they stared at each other. He found he almost couldn’t do it. Sean’s eyes held such hope, such want. He kept a reassuring smile on his face. It was all he could do. But his shock had passed, and he felt panic rising inside him like a rushing wave.

Soon, Sean sensed it too, and lowered his eyes. “You don’t have to be here,” Sean said softly.

He couldn’t pretend anymore. He tried to keep outright fear out of his eyes as he gently said, “Sean, what did you do? This is your career. Your life. Did you do it because of—”

Sean looked up at him. “I did the only thing left for me to do. I meant everything I said before you left.” 

“I know you did. I know.”

“And now I feel whole.”

He looked away, to his shock blinking back tears. “That’s great, Sean.”

“Holden,” Sean said, his voice so soft. “I owe it all to you. I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t made me see the things I want and don’t want in life.”

There was a long silence.

“But you don’t belong to me,” Sean told him. “I think I’ll be okay. You don’t have to feel as if you had to come back, and you don’t have to stay.”

He pressed his lips tight and nodded. “I’m happy for you, Sean, really. I think that—” He stopped. His voice had broken.

He had been about to say he thought Sean would one day make some guy very happy, but the words had almost choked him. He trailed his fingers through Sean’s hair one last time, tried even to smile, but, to his utter embarrassment, his face crumpled instead.

“I can’t,” he said through tears, and abruptly stood up. He left the orchid on Sean’s stomach and quickly kissed the crown of his head.

Leaving Sean no time to call to him, he hurried out of the house like it was on fire, forgetting his jacket by the front door.

Outside, he stopped as if he had hit a brick wall, unable to move no matter how hard he tried.

And there, like a little boy lost and separated from his best friend, he stood and cried his heart out.

~*~

Malibu was all sunshine and shining water, and this time Sean felt that it was all coming from inside him.

For the next six weeks the press followed him everywhere. Paula told him it was what he got for telling the whole world his business.

He felt ecstatic.

It had bothered him when they had called him a washout when he knew he wasn’t.

It had bothered him the way Holden made him feel whenever things had gotten too serious between them.

It was going to bother him in the fall when he went back to the locker room and his future teammates hurled slurs at him.

But this, what the press were doing because he had gotten up in front of the world and taken charge of his own life, did not bother him.

He had always had a decent relationship with the sports press, anyway. It was the tabloids that were losing their minds—every male celebrity, actor, musician and sports figure already having been paired with him—and the rest of the so-called legit media that were following suit.

But he’d had a good start out of the gates.

Kelvin Moore, the reporter Kara had picked to ask the first question at the press conference, with that excellent question had landed himself an editorial segment on the station. And what Kelvin had said would put the wind in his sails for a long time to come.

Jackie Robinson, Mohamed Ali, and Billie Jean King. History-making. It had never even crossed his mind. But it had automatically elevated the stakes.

And he would be forever grateful to Kelvin for starting out the segment with the words “Quarterback _sensation_ Sean Jackson.”

So he had done the rounds on _Good Morning America, The View,_ and on Ellen DeGeneres’s show. Kara told him Oprah would come later, after he had spent at least one season testing out his new historical status in the NFL.

He chuckled to himself whenever he thought of it. Him, an historical figure. It was hilarious. His sister Allison was proud of him, his mother had cried—he still couldn’t tell whether she was happy or sad for him; maybe a little bit of both—and his father was being brave about it.

“I’d always known something was up, son, but you’re still my son and I’ll stand by you always, no matter what.” That too made him smile when he thought about it.

He could see his pop growling back at anyone who dared even hint anything bad about his boy. “You talk to me when _your_ son is starting quarterback for a playoff team in the NFL. Till then, shut your pie hole!”

So. It had been six weeks, and Holden finally called.

~*~

They met at Paula’s house.

Paula had one of those art deco houses in the Hollywood Hills whose backyard was made up of interconnected, secluded gardens. He had gone through several sections before finding the wrought iron garden furniture that had been laid out with their breakfast.

She had insisted that they use her place to avoid all the media eyes waiting to spy Sean with any man anywhere in town. He had been grateful.

Gone were the days, he supposed, when he and Holden could meet at Yamashiro and no one would give them a second glance.

The meeting had been Holden’s idea.

He sat down and waited. Holden showed up less than a minute after him.

Holden entered the garden slowly, his eyes roaming the area as if he expected to be jumped.

Guilt was a terrible thing.

He stood up, and they kissed politely on the cheek and sat back down.

Like on their first date, they just stared at each other. Holden’s eyes were bright, a deep blue that was, in morning sunlight, impossible to look away from. He seemed…nervous.

Holden smiled brightly. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

He kept his eyes on Holden. After a moment he said, “I’m doing great.”

Holden pursed his lips, nodding slowly, as if trying to process what exactly that meant.

“That’s…great. You look great. Happy.”

“I guess I am.”

Holden squinted an eye at him. “Happy?”

He managed not to smile. He nodded, slowly, distinctly, so Holden could get a good look.

“That’s…great.”

Holden fell silent. He gave it some time, and when still nothing was forthcoming, he said, “Holden, you’re the one who wanted to meet.”

“Right, yeah,” Holden said immediately, eagerly. “Yeah. I…uh…I wanted to see how you were doing.”

He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. “We already went over that.”

“No, yeah, we did.” Holden's voice was too loud. He smiled tight-lipped. “We did. Um… So…good.”

By now, Holden was looking anywhere but at him. But he kept looking at Holden, surprised by how much he was enjoying this.

He decided he was going to let it go on a while. Holden squirming wasn't something he believed he’d ever seen.

He pointed at the table. “So do you wanna eat, or should we just go?”

Holden snatched up a napkin. “Let’s eat. I mean, we’re here, right?” Another flash of a smile. “I mean—” Nervous laughter. Then he seemed to give up.

He moved forward a little, leaning over the table to hide the smile fighting to erupt over his face. He picked up the jug of orange juice and asked Holden if he would like some. Holden stared at him as if he was holding out a glittering diamond ring. He nodded erratically.

He poured the juice.

Some for himself, some for his truant boyfriend.

“Wow,” Holden said. “So. Big news.”

“Kinda old news now.”

Holden threw him a look from cutting up his pancakes. “Being out in the NFL is not going to be old news for a hundred years.” There was a hard edge to his voice. “Trust me on that one.”

He looked across at Holden.

He did.

Beautiful on the inside and out, despite all his flaws, Holden never lied, never did or said anything he didn’t mean.

And watching him now in the morning light—all openness and unselfconsciousness, his eyelashes batting against his cheek as he blinked—he found him so adorable and so fuckable he didn’t know how to look away.

Truth was, he could move on from Holden. But he would think about him every day for the rest of his life.

His truth was, he loved Holden with every cell of his being. And it was wanting both himself _and_ Holden to understand that, to grasp how important love like this was in a person’s life, that had given him the courage to walk up to that podium.

“So what happened?” Holden asked.

He stopped, thought about it, and began to narrate from the day Holden had left before Valentine’s Day.

He told Holden about being alone and listening to all the shitty things the press had to say about him, and how that had sent him into a deep introspection about his life as a whole.

“I already knew how I felt about our relationship, so that had cleared my head a little. But trying to figure out my career came to seem like an afterthought when I couldn’t even figure out what was making me hurt now, as opposed to say three years ago.”

And then it came to the morning of the crash.

He didn’t tell Holden this, but at the moment the delivery guy had talked about love not being real for some people unless it was made real before the eyes of everyone, it came to him.

Despite having tried to separate it, he realized at that moment that what he felt for Holden was what it was really all about.

His world hadn’t been seeming real of late because he was living in a place whose existence hadn’t even been acknowledged. Not by him, and not by Holden.

If they were not a couple, if they were not in love and committed, then what were they? They might as well be figments of each other’s imaginations.

He had called the press conference and had brought his love, his world, into existence.

“Then, of course,” he said Holden, skipping the parts about his love, “came all the…hate mail and everything else. Hate mail. Can you imagine me getting hate mail? I come from Iowa, I drink milk instead of martinis, and I eat mostly vegetables.”

It made Holden laugh. “You do eat a lot of vegetables.“

It had been intended to make Holden laugh. He was glad.

“I got so many letters condemning all the deviant sex I was having, I started wondering whether I’d been doing it wrong. Paula suggested I get bodyguards, but I figured that’d be overkill. I think she got ’em for me, anyway, I’ve seen a couple of guys trailing me in a black SUV.”

“Huh,” Holden said. He kept eating, listening.

“So some morons defaced a bunch of my photographs in bookstores, which, as I’m sure you can imagine didn’t make the league publishers too happy, and someone kept hacking into the team website and putting up all kinds of sorry postings.” He chuckled. “I’ve been reading a bunch of the comments on the site, too. Some people are saying I shouldn’t be discussing my personal life in public—that was probably Paula, come to think of it—while others are saying I shouldn’t be considered a role model anymore, which I didn’t know I was. This one guy said if I could play football as well as I could apparently suck cock, the Chargers wouldn’t have dropped me. I thought that was pretty low. I think I play football better than I suck cock.”

Holden pinned him with a look. “Don’t even joke about it, Sean. It’s disgusting what they’re doing. Because, of course, now you’ve ruined their collective lives and they can’t go on fantasizing about being the quarterback from their couches every Monday night, because that would mean they secretly want to get fucked in the ass. Thank you, America. Thirty-five perfect tosses—”

“Completion throws.”

“—winning your division three years in a row, not to mention taking your team to the playoffs, _on a five-game winning streak,_ just doesn’t mean as much when stacked up against the possibility of confusing the source of your excitement. I swear, you could have murdered babies and they would care less.”

He watched Holden, fascinated.

Holden was behaving like an offended, entitled wife, righteously clawing and bitchily cutting down anyone who dared say anything negative about her husband.

He knew it because he saw it everyday during the regular season. The wives of his teammates were hellcats when it came to things like this, and in a thousand years he would never have guessed that Holden had been paying attention to what he did professionally.

Holden stopped talking, waving a hand apologetically.

He nodded, but at that moment realized that the minute he had sat down across from Holden on that their first date, it had been too late for him.

He didn’t ever want to move on.

He put down his fork and sat forward.

“Holden,” he began, “do you know what a commitment is?”

Holden snorted, then threw him a look. “Are you being serious?”

He nodded.

Holden’s brow knitted. “You want the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“All right, fine, I’ll tell you the truth.” Holden was trying to sound nonchalant. “A commitment is being tied down to another person even when you’re wilting away inside and your life has turned into utter crap.”

He thought about it for a moment. He had never asked Holden a direct question about his feelings on the subject. It had previously been strictly taboo. Now, it revealed so much, and he wondered that he had never had the courage to do so before.

“Maybe for some people,” he said to Holden. “But as far as I can see, a commitment to someone you love means making a decision that you’re going to be there through the good and the bad.”

There was silence. Holden stared at him with raised eyebrows, as if waiting for him to complete the sentence.

When he didn’t continue, Holden said incredulously, “That’s it?”

“As far as I can see, yeah.”

Holden sat forward as well, placing his elbow on the table, not backing down. “Sean, it’s not that easy. It’s never that easy. It’s not even— It’s not as easy as you’re making it sound.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it easy. But I think that the moment when it turns to crap is when you realize that you no longer love that person and you don’t know how to get out.”

Holden looked as if he was having a heart attack. “I couldn't stop loving you, Sean. Not even if I tried.”

He stared at Holden, his heart thumping inside his chest.

Holden looked terrified. Perhaps he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

He leaned forward, closer. “Holden, if you feel that way, what are you so afraid of?”

Holden blinked erratically, as if unsure of how they had gotten here. His eyes pleaded with him even as he said, “Can we talk about something else?”

He didn’t respond, and Holden looked down at the table, then at the ground, then back up at him.

“No,” he said softly, shaking his head.

“Sean, I’m not the kind of person someone like you should be with. Don’t ask me for a commitment. I’ll fail you.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because you have a real heart. You grew up in the Heartland…or wherever, and that made you a real person. I grew up in Bel Air. I don’t even know what real people are.”

“You have the most beautiful heart of anyone I’ve ever met,” he told Holden, making him meet his eyes. “You make one person happy every day of your life. How many people can say that? How can you say that’s not real?”

Holden tried to dismiss his words with a gesture. “That’s easy. I’m not _with_ them everyday. Who knows what I’ll become if someone has to be around me all the time?”

He rubbed one hand over the other. He didn’t know when he had gotten so nervous.

“ _I_ wanna find out.”

He sounded desperate, and he was. “You hurt me in the past, Holden, because you weren’t honest with me or with yourself. If what you feel for me is truly love, then I think I have the right to ask you to try.”

“No, Sean. You don’t have a right to ask me for something like that just because I love you.”

“I think I do.”

Holden looked cornered, confused.

“You could say no and leave," he told Holden. "But I don’t want you calling me anymore.”

Holden’s eyes flew to his.

“Isn't that the point? The arrangement? Weren’t you supposed to walk away if I asked for a commitment? Yet you keep calling me.”

“I—I wanted to see how you were doing,” Holden exclaimed, giving him a shocked look. “Sean, that’s _allowed._ ”

He looked down at his hands. “All right,” he said, pushing back his chair and standing up. “Then I guess we’re done.”

He placed his napkin on the table and picked up his keys. “Have a nice life, Holden.”

He didn’t make it past the table.

Holden was on his feet, his grip on his arm tight, and trembling. He looked down at Holden. Holden had his head down, his gaze somewhere around their feet.

He waited, but nothing was forthcoming. He brought his hand up and brushed his fingers against the side of Holden’s face.

“I’ll take care of you, Holden,” he said gently. “I promise.”

It took a few more moments, and then Holden at last, let go.

He slipped his arms around Holden as Holden’s weight sank into him. Holden stood there, his face buried against his neck. He kissed Holden on his cheek, on his temple, stroked the small of his back.

“Sean Jackson,” Holden said quietly, after a long silence. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

He smiled. “The pleasure, Mr. Wilson, is all mine.”

~*~  
 _Part 2: Just to Remind_


End file.
